Tuesday being the update day for Quakelive, the guys from id Software got busy this afternoon and released a new update of their game and website 3 weeks after the last changes. The complete changelog can be found on the Quakelive's dev forum or just below.

- Fixed an issue that would cause one flag to go missing during a CTF match.
- Fixed issues with s_musicvolume and s_volume getting reset to pre-defined values rather than user settings.
- Fix for on-screen damage indicator. The effect was incorrect. Three new cvars have been added as well to modify the effect. (cg_screenDamage, cg_screenDamage_Self, cg_screenDamage_Team)
- Fix for spectator overhead name text popping during scaling.
- Console timestamps fixed when using the "echo" command.
- Changes to shotgun pellet spread. Inner ring now does more damage than outer ring, for a total of 110 damage.
- cg_hudfiles will now default back to ui/hud.txt when incorrectly set.

- Added cg_HitBeep <0/1/2/3> (default: 1) to play different tones based on the amount of damage done to an opponent. 0 = off, 1 = single tone (old style), 2 = new multi-tone option, 3 = reverse multi-tone option.
- Added cg_crosshairHitStyle <0-8> (default: 0) to allow the same information given by cg_HitBeep to be displayed via the crosshair. Styles breakdown as follows:
0 = Off (the default)
1 = Colorize the crosshair based on damage dealt.
2 = Colorize the crosshair to color designated by cg_crosshairHitColor.
3 = Pulse the crosshair. (This is an exaggerated/scaled pulse)
4 = Colorize by damage and Pulse the crosshair.
5 = Colorize by cg_crosshairHitColor and Pulse the crosshair.
6 = Pulse the crosshair with a smaller pulse. (same size as the cg_crosshairPulse uses when picking items up)
7 = Colorize by damage and pulse with smaller pulse.
8 = Colorize by cg_crosshairHitColor and pulse with smaller pulse.
NOTE: If using the exaggerated pulse, you may want to set your cg_crosshairSize to 16, as the default 32 can be a bit overboard.
- Added cg_crosshairHitColor <1-7> (default: 1) for hit styles that have a fixed color. For example, some players simply want the crosshair to turn red when a hit is made, rather than change color based on damage applied.
- Added cg_crosshairHitTime (default: 200) to allow players to modify the amount of time the crosshair hit effect is displayed.
- Added cg_screenDamage <0xRRGGBBAA> (default: 0x700000C8) to colorize the on screen damage indicator; use "cg_screenDamage 0" to disable.
- Added cg_screenDamage_Self <0xRRGGBBAA> (default: 0x00000000) to toggle the on screen damage indicator for self damage. (for example, damage from rocket jumping)
- Added cg_screenDamage_Team <0xRRGGBBAA> (default: 0x700000C8) to colorize the on screen damage indicator for team damage; use "cg_screenDamage_Team 0" to disable. (Friendly Fire in Team Deathmatch)
- Added cg_zoomOutOnDeath <0/1> (default: 1) to reset player FOVs back to normal on death. This is useful if you use the cg_zoomToggle cvar.

NOTE: The new cg_hitBeep and cg_crosshairStyle additions give you an idea of how well placed your shot was. They do not indicate how much health/armor your opponent has.

- Players accounts that have been banned for violating the Terms of Use are now noted as being 'suspended' on their account profile.
- Added the build number to the plugin download filename
- You can now hover over the various "Time Played" fields on your profile to see the exact amount of time that you've played in the given context.
- Players who haven't played a game in over a month will now have their profile properly display that rather than saying they have never played a game.
- Fixed a problem where valance background graphics weren't being served from the CDN
- Fixed a problem where players could get onto the site when they were unable to connect to the XMPP network. Now the site will block you at the loading screen until it is able to successfully establish the XMPP connection.
- Fixed problems where the sharing buttons on match details and news articles weren't working under certain circumstances.

Shotgun 100 damage was more balanced imo, hate when someone pwns me with SG :(
Also, how about in next update more visible grenades like in CPM, those with vertexlight 1 are pure black, sometimes hard to see and avoid.

I did not play CPM so I do not know, but I certainly believes it removes some skill of actually knowing if you did damage to your opponent or not as the knowledge can make the difference between attacking a power up or fleeing.

Seriously, if you want to discuss this keep it at a sensible level. If you want to use stupid arguments then find someone else. There is certainly an amount of skill to be found in hearing the hit or making sure you can see it while moving to your desired position on the map.

Why don't we change the cg_scoreplums command to cg_hitplums and have it display little numbers indicating the damage done, in fact, why stop there when you could simply have it display how much it did to the health and armour or even just how much they have?

The game is based on not having information, and using intuition to gather information to give yourself leverage.

But if the players would be less visible (no fullbright skins, no keel/tankjr), footsteps would be the same for enemy, friend and self, maybe some bitmaps you can hide behind, that for example would generate more depth.

Depth is a measure of the number of choices a player can make at any moment that are not dominated strategies.

So are you trying to say that the depth in a FPS doesn't come from a players physical skills or their intuitive ability?

Those are what give players valid choices within the game world. If you are to give players more information, for free, you are reducing the amount of valid choices a player can make.

Adding a skill requirement is another possible way to increase depth - requiring a certain level of skill to execute a given strategy effectively will essentially randomize the outcome. For instance, in Street Fighter, a player may not be able to execute a Shoryuken 100% of the time. This introduces a decision point for him - weighing the benefits of executing properly against the drawbacks of a failure. Be careful with this, however, as it can lead to a situation where the game has less depth at the high end if everyone can eventually perform the skill 100% of the time (or at least close enough as to be functionally the same). While I don’t like making general proclamations, I think a good general rule is that games should have more depth at the high end of ability, not less.

This sums it up for me, intuitive skills are essentially "infinite" and cannot be maxed out.

There's no such thing as emergent complexity in a computer game and I've not read such a stupid phrase in quite a while.

Emergent: Arising and existing only as a phenomenon of independent parts working together, and not predictable on the basis of their properties.

Everything in a computer game can be calculated and predicted given enough time.

Simplicity and complexity of game mechanics can seem very paradoxical. Calling a game “simple” can be a criticism, such as “so simple it is boring.” It can also be a compliment: “so simple and elegant!” Complexity can also be a double-edged sword. Games are criticized as “overly complex and confusing,” or complimented as “richly and intricately complex.” To make sure your game has the “good simplicity” and the “good complexity,” but not the bad, we need to look at the nature of simplicity and complexity in games and how to strike the right balance between them.

So much praise is heaped on classic games for being ingeniously simple that it might make you think that making a complex game is a bad thing. Let’s look at the different kinds of complexity that show up in games:

- Innate complexity.
When the very rules of the game get very complex, I call this innate complexity. This is the kind of complexity that often gets a bad name. It generally arises either because the designer is trying to simulate a complex realworld situation, or because extra rules need to be added to a game in order to balance it. When you see a ruleset with lots of “exception cases,” this is generally a ruleset that is innately complex. Games like this can be hard to learn, but some people really enjoy mastering the complex rulesets.

- Emergent complexity.
This is the kind of complexity that everyone praises. Games like Go that have a very simple ruleset that gives rise to very complex situations are said to have emergent complexity. When games are praised for being simple and complex at the same time, it is the emergent complexity that is being praised.

Emergent complexity can be difficult to achieve, but is worth the effort. Ideally, one can create a simple ruleset out of which emerges the thing every game designer strives for: balanced surprises. If you can design a simple game that becomes a factory for a never-ending stream of balanced surprises, people will play your game for centuries to come. The only way to find out whether you have achieved this is to keep playing and changing your game over and over until the surprises start to come. Of course, using Lens #23: The Lens of Emergence can help, too.

So, if emergent complexity is so great, why would anyone make a game that is innately complex? Well, sometimes you need the innate complexity to simulate a real-world situation, such as re-creating a historical battle. Other times, you add more innate complexity to balance your game a little better. The pawns in chess have movement rules that are innately complex: When they move, they can only move forward one square, into an unoccupied space, unless it is their first move, in which case they can move one or two spaces. One exception to this is when they are capturing another piece; in that case, they can only move diagonally forward, but only one square, even if it is their first move.

This rule has some innate complexity (some keywords of innate complexity: “unless, ” “except, ” “exception, ” “but,” and “even if ”), but it is one that evolved gradually in an attempt to make sure pawns had a behavior that was well-balanced and interesting. And, in fact, it is well worth it, for this small amount of innate complexity blossoms into a great deal more emergent complexity — particularly because the pawns can only move forward, but capture diagonally — that leads to fascinatingly
complex pawn structures that can form on the board that would never be possible with a simpler ruleset.

So you are saying that guessing how much splash damage was done by a rocket is a good thing? We are talking about a frivilous skill. Perhaps visually estimating the damage takes more skill, but quake has never been about estimations or guesses. That is why we play quake instead of cs. The new hitbeep command reduces ambiguity and streamlines the already fast gameplay.

How much extra skill do you think it really takes to visualize splash damage? Most people are capable. Is this "skill" important to the gameplay? I say no.

It plumbed due to CPL and the rest of mediocre organizations trying to kill such established competitive platform for easy $$$. And the sheeps following. And the Q4 mp fiasco. We have been reported a dead community for so many years, and now with quakelive there are servers and leagues and tourneys poping everywhere. The good old days are right now. Enjoy.

not sure about the sg change. infact just like with the lg, i dont see why you are going for more and more complicated changes for what could easily be achieved with simpler changes. just reevaluate the entire weapon balance based on the original behaviour imo.

anyways thanks for the hitsounds. they dont feel as nice as the cpm ones but then thats prolly cos im used to the cpm ones :). but feels nice to be able to tell how much splash the rockets do.

ps: wish ud look at the rocket splashes again, thats a more important weapon issue than the idiot sgs.

tbh i expected a bit more since this is the first update since qcon
hit sounds are nice, but thats a bout it. the option for this needs to get into the menu btw
also hate to see the sg getting back to 110 dmg :(

syncerror please give us the so desired threewave maps. we love the game and we love the effort id is taking in to give quake a rebirth but pleasee please please fucking please get back those wonderful maps. its like coming home and all your nice furnishings are gone. instead of feeling home it feels like an empty shell. actually my soul is starving for those maps, i cant descirbe it any longer. it hurts too much.

What is the exact reload time for each weapon? I'm thinking of using cg_crosshairHitStyle 2 (colorize the crosshair to red on hit) with cg_crosshairHitTime bound to each weapons reloadtime so that the crosshair returns to normal when the weapon is reloaded.

Not that every Quaker doesn't have the reload time in their bone marrow already but very useful to know if your shaft is hitting 100% for example, since the crosshair should then be red continuously.

It's not and it's no matter that those features come from CPMA because people are constantly requesting for them. My point is that I like policy of adding those features. When arqon wanted to add new LG beam he removed the old one which people loved instead just adding the new one with possibility to switch between all of them.

I sometimes drop the flag for my teammate only to find out he has less health than I do. This and/or a teamoverlay that you can position yourself. Looking for the overlay at the topright is kind of annoying (for me at least), would like to be able to position it bottom-left.

This why you should play team modes with a clan using voice chat. It is not a reason to be given that information through the hud, as that does not require any use of communication which is after all a big part of teamplay in a team mode.

I play teammodes only exclusively with my clan and we do use communications. It's just, after grabbing the flag, there's more important things to talk about than to inform everyone about your current health. I'd say a HUD should be the main supporting factor in this.

Sure but you got to prioritize, sometimes knowing your friends health/armor is very important and removing communication is bad. At least they can use teamplay binds, that announces your health/armor upon use.

Getting automatic information through the HUD simplifies communication and lowers the skill level in Quake Live.

A health + armor overview when you aim over your teammates adds no new information that overlay doesn't give you already, it's just more comfortable to do so.

If I'd reason with your argument, you'd be against bright models aswell, since it shows enemies too easy, but that's just how it is in QL. Besides, the function I'm mentioning has been in every Quake game so far, so I'm kind of missing it.

Oh right there is that shit... yea I dislike teamoverlay. Way too used to the quality of QuakeWorld TDM, that is, honestly at least twice as good as QL.

As for brightskins, its better than having players tune their monitor to show everything easily. Make sure there is skill in the game but don't try to ban things you can't detect, like turning brightness on your monitor to 100%.

"I like the new sounds better because battles feel more calculated instead of going off of feeling."
yea and thats the point. this feeling is a skill. item timing would be more calculated if the itemtimer could be turned on in ordinary matches too. but since this information is hidden, its a feeling when the items spawn and if you have this skill you can capitalize on it and have an advantage.

those hitsounds certainly take something away from the skill that could be desribed as: guess how much energy your opponent has. now its easier to judge and more people will avoid a fight now when they instead would have attacked before.

now that those hitsounds are there i realize, i didnt have this skill too, but now, all of a sudden, i my judgements of how much damage i dealt are a lot better than before... for nothing. i like it more when it is a secret and when there is something that i can learn to have an advantage over the opponent. then i can say: you know why i am better than you? its because i can judge how much damage i dealt to you and so i know when to chase and when to escape. you can learn it too, it just takes 1 year. muahahahah

For rockets when you see them hit the beep is now more of an audio representation of what you're seeing. Close rocket deeper beep, almost miss higher beep.

I guess a better word instead of 'vague' would be 'obvious', but it's not like the screen is flashing an exact number, either.

Spam shots though, are completely different. Not only do they give away enemy position, now they say roughly how much damage.

(just questions for anyone)
Why not go back to the days of quakeworld/unrealtournament where hit knowledge was based off enemy blood spurts, no beeps, as the emphasis here seems to be visual 'skill' over audio?

Why should my location be given away because I hit the very outer edge of a random gl explosion?

Spam shots though, are completely different. Not only do they give away enemy position, now they say roughly how much damage.

Thing is, this is (for now) part of QL rules, nothing more, nothing less. You cannot apply definitions like "good" or "bad" just to the rules defining game mechanics, they are just descriptions of how game works. The game doesn't have to be realistic (or everyone should complain that players respawn after death). So, now you can know how much damage your spam grenade dealt - so what? It's just a new rule.
You can't know precisely how this change will affect the overall game. It might actually add some depth to the strategy, or it might make the game simpler, or it even might make no difference whatsoever - you can't really know unless a statistically sufficient amount of matches is played. I don't think that you can judge such things just from their description, without actually playing any games and seeing what actual difference does it make.

Precisely why I put "bad" in quotes. Spam shots and the hitbeeps that accompany them are what makes quakelive special.

The question is how far do we take this, and what are the best choices for competitive play, and which are better for recreational play.

On one extreme we can have a pure 'feeling' game with no beeps or even no clock to time items, even spawn times that can vary randomly by a few seconds to stop 'cheaters' who would use an outside clock.

The the other extreme would be to have an automatic item timer, numbers that tell exactly how much damage you did whenever you hit even if you can't see it, or even in the case of realtime strategy games a bar that indicates how much health your enemy has left.

I agree that nothing can be concluded until enough matches have been played. Already players are drawing conclusions from these changes, saying that it is taking away skill.

Although from my experience with cpm, I can say it will make things different, but not necessarily less skill.

"You cannot apply definitions like "good" or "bad" just to the rules defining game mechanics, they are just descriptions of how game works."

you can. you have to define what you want and the you can say, does it support what you want or does it not.

its explainable, why it takes away skill. you hear how much damage you've done, so you know it by hearing it. you don't hear how much damage you've done, so you don't know by hearing it and you have to find out by yourself -> skill. :)

i think even in closecombats it adds. at least i was never that aware of how much damage i did. it doesnt take too much skill anymore. now i think, ok, there was a hundred, there was a fifty, i stay for one more hit than i leave. otherwise i would have stayed until the end, because i didnt think about it. like i already said, now i'm a better player for nothing. i can feel it, i have more confidence, i know, i did 300 damage, thats so cool, in the next fight i get him. i never had a feeling for this, thats why i was worse. i dont play quake because its easy, i play it because its hard and there is so much to master.

ur assuming that every player is capable of using the extra information to make better choices. this is simply not true. yes a smart player can use the extra info to formulate better options like say going aggressive after hitting some spam shots and knowing you did a lot of damage. but i can apply the same logic backwards to say that if u didnt have the info, the not so smart player, which is pretty much everybody, will play more +back which isnt necassarily good for the game either.

arguments like these are pointless since theyre almost always double edged with no obvious objective solution. at the end of it its just a change and the best thing to do is to see how it plays out. i honestly dont think the hitbeeps are going to change the gameplay that much. even among pros. and even if it does it will only tend towards slightly more aggressive play from the smart folks, which is something i think ql can use.

Crouchsliding wont happen, would be awesome, likes are likes... Maybe a bit shorter in length than the Q4 one, and only working if youre going >650ups or smthg, to avoid abuse. Seeing a guy going at full speed and crouchsliding then continuing the strafes while keeping momentum is sexy, if hes hiting the enemy meanwhile, points for style. Should be very restrictive about execution, only if its properly done should work. Its ok to be friendly in most things, but some non vital tricks harder to master like crouchsliding would rule. I think crouchsliding is a better way to expand the quake flow than the bunnyhopping/aircontrol mess.

QL is what ever ID makes it out to be. If they added "fill in the blank" to ql then it becomes a part of ql. Remember, ql is still in beta so saying "fill in the blank" isn't a part of ql is pretty retarded considering the game isn't even finalized yet. Oh btw, all those options you are asking for are already in cpma vq3.

So to you use your same response back right at you, if you want "FUCKING CHAT TOKENS" and "COACH and multiview" then go play osp or cpma. Stop trying to make ql into osp or cpma. Let ql just be ql.

Dont ask for CPMA gameplayfeatures in QL, QL is QL(well its actually baseq3 trying to become cpma vq3) not fucking CPMA.

95% of the current ql players barely know the basic commands in the game. They sure to hell don't know what chat tokens are. So to the ql community as a whole they aren't "necessary". Would they mind if it was addded? Probably not, would they even care if air control was added as an option on some servers? Probably not, but none of these are "necessary" to them.

When you whine about the slow advances in Quake Live don't forget about the other major projects of id software that need QL's web-based matchmaking system.
As long as Rage is in development we will get a maximum of 50% work time invested in our beloved Quake, so please stay calm and be happy about what you have.

From the comments here it seems that the day ID announce they will stop supporting QL because the financial model does not work, a lot of poeple will be happy for being spared such poor quality updates of a free game where professionals do a ridiculous job compared to free-time developers...

hmmm i am just curious about who will use all the new consoles commands apart from hitsound.

Nobody with a minimum quake experience wants a dancing crosshair or colors spreading on the screen.
Nobody without quake experience or new players dont even know how to make a cfg and so they will never activate this cvars.

How is it too powerful? I don't see, for example, players in a duel rushing to get shotgun and start making easy frags with this "overpowered" weapon. Rapha's SG use = 8%, spartie's 7%, strenx'es 3%, etc, etc. How the fuck is it "too powerful"? Are you out of your mind?

Okay, where is it overpowered?
FFA? I don't see it; for example, fatal1ty's stats: SG/RL/LG/RG usage = 18% / 27% / 15% / 19%. I'd say it's fairly balanced.
CTF? Well, I couldn't quickly find a player who plays almost only CTF, co I can't show any stats here, but again I haven't seen any matches where SG was primary weapon.
TDM? I don't know anything about TDM, so if you show me the proof, I'll agree. But I don't see how it could be much different from plain DM in sense of weapon usage.
I don't understand people who say SG is overpowered. It is considerably more effective than other weapons at very close range, yes. But that's why we have different weapons: so that some of them will be more effective than others in different situations. Are you complaining that SG is too powerful because there are instances where it's preferred over other weapons?

Edit: forgot about CA. Now checking stats on some of the random CA matches, and in most of them half of the players didn't even use SG. But wouldn't they use SG in CA all the time if it was overpowered weapon? IMHO, it's the strongest argument that SG is not overpowered. In CA you have all the weapons and you can choose any one you wish. Yet we don't see all-SG CA matches at all.

I think you don't understand balancing. In Quake it's about equaling the weapon's usefulness. We got the machine gun from the start, and it should be weak. But all the other weapons waiting for to be picked up need to stay significant, and that's why every weapon in Quake differs in its usage. Think about plasma gun, which is freaking strong, but also the hardest to hit. Shotgun is easy to hit from medium distance, but strong only in close range where it gets a lot harder to track the opponent correctly.
By lowering the shotgun's damage again you make it useless compared to the machine gun. There needs to be a reason to pick up the shotgun. In Campgrounds it's placed in these narrow corridors where you can come close to the enemy and take him down even when he just picked up armor. You can use it to deal serious damage to the quad carrier. In TDM it is a very important weapon for the team that lost its positions and wants to gain some map control.

I think you don't understand balancing. In Quake it's about equaling the weapon's usefulness.

erm, no.
the sg was usefull in close combat or in situations where you could peek out, fire a shot and get behind cover again. thats how the sg is supposed to work imho; good in some, crappy in most situations. but currently you can win midrange fights against rl, thats not balancing, thats stupid

To be fair:
- Lots of SGs
- MG spawn weapon
- Not much health/armour on the maps
- Small maps
- Quick firing

These don't really help the SG, if you look at DM14 for example it's not too big a problem there (In fact it's mostly fine, although still just pure annoying and skillless), although you'd think it would be much more effective on DM14 due to all the "ambush" potential.

I've learnt not to expect much from these updates, so then I don't get disappointed. I'm still disappointed, especially after no update last week.. this update every two weeks is really not working out for you.

and how about removing cg_hitbeep 2/3 BUT adding a specific scream/pain sound to the enemy model when you hit a direct rocket/grenade or rail? Q4 does have this scream/pain sound which gives information about damage but just when you hit a direct rocket/grenade/rail and splash damage doesnt do any sound except enemy was low on health.
This way you can get the information how much damage you've done but most spam shots wont give you this information because of your distance to the enemy.

This worked well in q4. So I think it will fit ql too.

btw I cant judge the amount of damage in teammodes... way too much spam to too many enemys... and in duel... its mostly annoying but I cant judge it properly after 1 day.

i remember two years ago on lan my friend changed the sounds, so when you picked up quad it said: "hands up you perverted fuckers", instead of "humiliation" it said "die motherfucker!" etc.
was awesome :)

yeah, and it's actually pretty easy to do.
I once modified a version for rtcw for a vid (beer logos everywhere) and my team and I played that on LAN.
Should have thought of adding a "Drink more beer!" Voicechat though :/

I'm always happy with updates! Small or big, they still make me feel a bit more happy everytime since we get closer and closer to leave the beta! Great work!

I really hope we see some maps any time soon. CTF/CA are currently just a bit better off with maps than Duel/TDM, thats where we need so much fresh material to start playing Quake Live and not Q3 in a web! I'm patient though.

the problem is that u wait ages for duel detective to find some game and after that when u join someone out of blue pop ups .... i don`t get it why not make dd games closed and add some shiny stuff to encourage using it (some ladder would be cool)

There are many "wrong" things in Quake. It's a computer game, it doesn't have to be "right". For example, let's assume for a moment that there are no hitsounds. You shoot a spam grenade in a corridor and go away. Then, 2 seconds later, an enemy with 1hp bumps into it and dies. Is it "right" for you to see the "You fragged ...." message and therefore know that you've fragged an enemy while you are already miles away and completely not able to see what happened there? If everything was "right", you wouldn't be able to know even how many frags you have.

True, oc Quake is not about being "realistic" or "right". It's more about finding the best compromise between the 2 extremes (new hitsounds and no hitsounds at all for example) and still provide skill-demanding gameplay. Giving info for things out of sight beside pain sounds which may get swallowed by walls - i allways disliked that.
With the original q3 hitsounds one has to make educated guesses (experienced player -> better guessing) on how much damage was done in the range of 1-100 hp, now only in a range of 25 hp.
So i think the original hitsounds are a better compromise (more experience/skill needed).
But with the new ones, no hitsounds for out of sight would be better. More precise in line of sight/nothing outside line of sight.

I dont know if ID thinks that people will play on publics all day long or what, but for gods sake release private servers to make competetive play possible...

If quake really is about competetive gaming, why in hell game has been about 2 years out without any kind of competetive support for teamgames? expect ofc for some leagues and shiaat..

What you should do is make matchmaking feature for clans, clan control panel and private server delivery integrated in Quake Live website.. The way it is now, i dont really think we have any new competetive players / clans.

But if a shuffle is done (and I switch to the other team) or even if I switch by myself during a match, the colour stay identical... I mean my previous m8 (who are now my enemies) stay white coloured (instead of become green) and my m8 (who was previously my enemies) stay green (instead of become white)...

I'm tempted to go on a troll rampage, but i actually do like that thing. One thought, maybe make hitsounds diminish over a set distance, so you can't tell if your spam rocket did hit or not from half a map away.

Also, damage skins. Let's go Painkeep on this motherfucker. I wanna see blood on their faces, i wanna see sparks flying all over the place.